A group of retired civil servants on Wednesday demanded that Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan should resign from his post on account of allegations of widespread mismanagement in the conduct of centralised competitive exams.
The demand came against the backdrop of controversies surrounding the cancellation of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for medical admissions following allegations of a paper leak, and complaints about the Central Board of Secondary Education’s digital evaluation process for the Class 12 examination. The developments have sparked protests and calls from Opposition parties for Pradhan’s resignation.
The Constitutional Conduct Group on Wednesday expressed outrage over the “repeated, monumental failures in the conduct of national level examinations under the watch of the Union Ministry of Education”.
The group said that the “systemic collapses” had shattered the dreams and futures of millions of students and “severely eroded public trust in one of the most critical components of…democracy – the public education and merit system”.
Referring to the NEET-UG controversy, the group questioned why the National Testing Agency had been unable to rectify the recurring flaws in the examination process.
It added that “in its obsession with centralised testing and selection systems, the Union government has paid scant regard to the dictum that decentralised functioning distributes risks and eliminates the chances of catastrophic, universal failures”.
The retired civil servants also said that repeated requests from the governments of Tamil Nadu and other states that they be allowed to conduct their own undergraduate admissions processes had been ignored.
The group also flagged the “chaotic implementation” of the On-Screen Marking system for the CBSE Class 12 examination. It said that the move to transfer the education board’s chairperson and secretary was “too little, too late”.
It added: “This hid the deeper policy blind spots, lack of rigorous beta testing and oversight failures.”
“We do not believe that the CBSE chairman and secretary alone could have been solely responsible,” the group said. “There must have been some interest expressed from higher up.”
It also said that in a democracy, elected representatives are “ultimately accountable to the citizens of India”.
“When lakhs of students and their families suffer immense mental agony and financial strain due to preventable lapses in high-stakes examinations…those at the helm cannot abdicate their constitutional duties and evade responsibility for avoidable lapses,” the group said. “They cannot hold only officials responsible.”
In addition to seeking Pradhan’s resignation, the group also demanded a “time-bound and independent judicial or expert review” of the National Testing Agency and the CBSE evaluation system. It also sought the implementation of “strict, state-of-the-art security and cryptographic protocols against question paper leaks and rigorous third-party audits of all digital evaluation system” before national rollouts.
Written by Tanya Shrivastava. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.
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